


A Command Performance

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo | Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Consensual Infidelity, F/F, Femslash, Power Imbalance, Roleplay, opera - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 05:07:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14157438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: The première of the new opera,Elisabeth Bathory, has been a roaring success. Now the company's most devoted patron has a request to make of the prima donna...





	A Command Performance

**Author's Note:**

> For the Ladiesbingo prompt 'Vampires'

The première of _Elisabeth Bathory_ had been a roaring success. No sooner had the curtain fallen on the blood-drenched final scene, the soprano inert in the tenor's vengeful arms, than it rose again at the urging of cheering and whistling and a thousand stamping feet. The murderous noblewoman and her virginal victims had been resurrected to take dozens of curtain calls. The critics scribbled. _A triumph_ , they would say. _The dark tones and commanding presence of the newest operatic sensation made the vampire countess thrillingly, convincingly, sinister._

The opera's most devoted patron – we had better, for the sake of discretion, follow the example of our predecessor and call her _Countess G-_ – had arranged a little supper party _à deux_ in a private room at a very discreet restaurant.

'I have followed your career with great interest,' the Countess said.

The _prima donna_ inclined her head, accepting the compliment as no more than her due. 'For me, certainly, it has been an interesting career.'

'Yes! since the first time I saw you – on my own side of the curtain, I may say – I was fascinated. One goes to the opera to see and to be seen, you know, to look at one's peers in the audience as much as to listen to the music. And the Baron Danglars' lovely daughter was as well worth looking at then as _la serenissima_ Eugénie is worth listening to today.'

'There are very few people,' the great Eugénie Danglars remarked, 'who care to connect the one with the other. To my face, at least.'

'I intended no impertinence,' the Countess said, in a manner that implied that she did not much care if any had been assumed.

'I'm gratified that your ladyship remembers me from those years,' Madame Danglars remarked in much the same tone. 'Those who were more interested in the audience than the stage held that you had eyes only for the Count of Monte Cristo.'

'Ah!' An abstracted expression passed fleetingly over the Countess' face. 'Now there was a man that one could believe to be a vampire. That face as pale as a corpse's, that dark hair...' She eyed Madame Danglars speculatively. 'Much like yours, really.'

'I have much for which I am grateful to the Count of Monte Cristo,' said Eugénie Danglars. 'And much for which I am grateful to you.' She met the speculative gaze without flinching; indeed, one might almost have said that she returned it.

The Countess shivered. 'My dear, if there happened to be any little service which I might render you... You will find that I am absolutely at your disposal.' She rose from her chair.

'Is that so?' returned the _prima donna_ , with a little ironic twist to her lips. She, too, stood up.

'Indeed. You should consider me as – what was her name? – your unfortunate cousin Amélie – in the second act. That duet! my dear! I was cold all over.'

'I have her pleading for her life and her soul, you know,' Danglars said, taking a step towards the Countess.

'Ah! but when she succumbs at last, how sudden, how exquisite is that surrender!' She crossed her hands over her breast as if for protection, but the tip of one finger caressed the little hollow at the base of her throat.

Danglars took the hint and came very close. She tilted the Countess' face up towards her own as if to kiss her, then, changing her mind, laid her left hand over that tantalising finger and stepped round behind her. She bent her head until her lips found a frantic, fluttering pulse. 'Her life and her soul,' she repeated, and she let her breath wash over the Countess' throat.

'Ah!' It was a gasp of pleasure suppressed.

Eugénie Danglars smiled to herself and, taking one of the Countess' hands in each of her own, uncrossed those folded arms and captured them down by her waist. At the same moment she bit, hard, on the soft skin at the ridge of the collarbone.

The gasp was one of pain, this time, and yet still pleasure.

Now Danglars took both of the Countess' delicate wrists in her strong left hand. With her other, she unbuttoned the exquisite amber silk gown and trailed her thumb across the exposed skin of her shoulders. She released one hand, then the other, to push the sleeves down the arms.

The Countess submitted meekly.

'You don't even struggle,' Danglars murmured.

'I am entirely at your service,' the Countess said, her breath coming quickly.

'Even so...'

'I will struggle, if you wish it.'

Eugénie gripped harder. 'What I wish is irrelevant, isn't it?'

The stays were more difficult to manage one-handed. She was able to loosen the laces and ease the stiff whalebone away from the Countess' soft flesh, but she had to release the grip of her left hand to remove it entirely. The Countess sighed, and Eugénie drew her gently backwards until she could lean against the wall. She placed her mouth once more on the bare throat, reached downwards, and began to draw the Countess' petticoats upwards and upwards, until the lace spilled over her hands and she could feel soft skin and damp, curling, hair under her fingertips.

The other woman's body was limp, lying heavy against her now, as if Eugénie truly had drawn all the blood from her. Only her rapid breathing and the fluttering of her eyelids showed that she was awake and a willing participant in the matter. Eugénie smiled, very slightly, and began to press her fingers harder, upwards, inwards, moving them in tiny circles until she heard the hitch in the Countess' breath. With her free hand she lifted the Countess' arm by the elbow and let it go again. The Countess let it fall back down by her side. Her eyes flickered open, and then shut again.

Satisfied, Eugénie ran the fingertips of her left hand lightly over the Countess' breasts and resumed the steady action of the other, persisting heedless of the quick breaths and feeble gasps until at last the woman's body jerked violently and she cried out.

Eugénie waited some seconds, then gently restored her to her feet.

'I trust that your ladyship is satisfied,' Eugénie said, with a trace of irony that she did not trouble to hide.

'Entirely, thank you. At least...'

'Yes?'

'As much as one can ever be, given the fact that neither of us is a vampire.'

The _prima donna_ laughed. 'Then perhaps you will take comfort in the fact that one of us is a real countess.'

  
The lamp was burning in the window, and the door opened before Eugénie could knock.

Louise was in her nightgown, her eyes wide and dark in the candlelight. She stepped backwards to let Eugénie in; then she closed and locked the door, and turned to her.

'You were a triumph.' It was almost a question.

Eugénie nodded. 'I believe so.'

'Tell me about it,' Louise murmured, moving close and winding her arms around Eugénie's neck. 'Tell me about her.'

'Oh,' Eugénie said, between kisses, 'she was very sweet, very obliging. Fair's fair, isn't it?'

'What did she have you do?'

Eugénie smiled slowly. 'Let me show you...'


End file.
